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General Discussion / Re: BNSF Cited in Lead Clean-up Along Lumber District Track in Tribune
« on: November 13, 2013, 01:40:23 PM »In my reading of the STB document I think the only trackage west of Halsted to be abandoned is a short stretch from Halsted to just past Peoria Street or less than one city block. I looked at Google Maps and Colonial Brick (2222 South Halsted) has a boxcar parked on their lot so presumabely BNSF is retaining enough track to access this customer from the west. The spur enters at the northwest corner of their property along Cermak.
In the photos I took monday morning, you are correct about Colonial Brick, but not about what track is going. All the track east of Halsted is all gone now too, all the way to past Canal. There's a couple old signals and tracks are still present at street crossings, but the vast majority of the track is long gone. As for getting into Colonial Brick, the tail track runs north to just before Cullerton where it abruptly ends. There is still some track north of there, but so far they've left the track in the easement but removed all street and alley crossings.
Quote from: TBurke
There are still several active customers served by rail besides Colonial Brick between Peoria Street and Western Avenue including a warehouse on the west side of Ashland and on the north bank of the South Branch of the Chicago River (see screen shot below), the Kramer and Company smelter/foundry north of Cermak and along the west side of Loomis (with the fascinating tail track), a scrapyard on Paulina south of Cermak, and Domnio's Sugar on the north bank of the river and on the east side of Western Avenue.
Domino's appears to have its own Trackmobile while the scrapyard on Paulina uses some kind of bulldozer type piece of heavy equipment with a coupler. See the attached screen shot.
These shippers make me wonder why the Central Illinois Railway could not make a go of it. The scrapyard and Domino's seem to generate many hundreds of carloads annually.
I thought the STB documents had a map that showed the other rail that was being abandoned was to the WEST of Western, not east? I saw MANY hopper cars parked on Paulina on monday, and the tracks all along Blue Island and Cermak were clearly being used and in good shape. The track west of Western from immediately north of the YMCA all the way to the river has no connections to mainlines anymore. It's severed just north of the river and right before western, so trains couldn't even access that if they wanted to. There are no cars left on that line either. There clearly had been a lot of industry along there, especially Crown Steel Sales Inc., but none of them look rail served in a while. Google Earth shows that the line was severed between March 2012 and April 2013. Before that the rail line was still open and usable, but in March of 2013 other trailers and whatnot blocked the tracks.
I question what will happen to the bridge on the Chicago River because the Illinois Central Railroad Swing Bridge #1 is one of the last remaining center pier swing bridges in Chicago. It's over 100 years old and is a Chicago Landmark: http://webapps.cityofchicago.org/landmarksweb/web/landmarkdetails.htm?lanId=13123